Sixty-Three
From on high, Lilith looked down on Eve like a cold moon over a black sea. The Little White Dragon fixed on the dark-violet vortex coiled behind the Demon, and realization cracked through her like lake ice.
Eve had been holding back. All her probing was worthless; if this Demon wished, she could flood that vortex like a brimming reservoir and unleash Abaddon’s full storm—no need for these chicken-scratch mind games.
“How cruel.” Lilith clicked her tongue, but the Little White Dragon wouldn’t fold. If she broke this easily, she wouldn’t have lived years on this continent; even weaker than Eve, she still had a chance to turn the tide against the wind.
Eve was still sandbagging. Lilith had to seize this last window—before the Demon showed true power—unleash her strongest strike, maim or kill, and make Eve pay for underestimating her, like a gambler losing on a smug grin.
But wanting is a sunrise; doing is a mountain. In practice, she had no clean way to kill or cripple Eve.
The holy sword had faded; the Saint’s power was sealed. In raw damage she was penniless, and her only serious attack left was the Broken Sword in her grip.
The Shattered Ark was sharp; last bout, Lilith had scored a cut on Eve, a slice easy as paper. If she struck a vital, she could still carve hard into the Demon.
So the problem stood like a locked gate: how to drive the blade through Eve’s heart. The Shattered Ark was a broken sword; it couldn’t lance straight like a longsword. To wreck the core, she had to come from the side, thread through half a chest like a needle, then bury the edge in Eve’s heart.
Worse, Abaddon’s heart lay inside Eve’s own; she couldn’t simply destroy it. She needed to open a big hole in that chest and pluck the heart free like fruit from thorn.
That was hard for Lilith; nicking Eve once had taken a storm’s worth of effort. It was thanks to the sudden Black Swordsman she had caught the Demon off guard; recreating lightning is never easy.
And now she had to dig the heart out—scratching skin versus carving stone.
Her little head spun, gears whirring like a clockwork star-map. She had to find a breakthrough among the tools she still held. Resources she had; to reach the goal, she needed imagination, like paint on blank night.
“Got it!” She slapped her forehead, a spark jumping in the dark.
The Little White Dragon shifted the Broken Sword into her right hand. Her left reached behind and gripped the Astrolabe she’d crafted at the dawn of her magical path, a first comet held once more.
She leveled the blue-white gem tip at Eve and began to murmur, words curling like incense smoke.
She remembered the spell Asterios had shown her when she first stepped through a door into starlight.
Later, she’d learned it wasn’t deep; even apprentices could cast it. Little real lethality, mostly spectacle, a lantern show on the river. Asterios had flaked Fafnir’s scales because of constellation resonance—the Rupture Seat gave her Stellar Magic the trait to crack all things like frost on rock.
Lilith’s own Void Command Seat didn’t have that effect, but her Meteor Cannon carried other weight—falling stars hit like iron hail.
Her low chant tangled like vines. Runes bloomed one by one at the staff tip; ancient true-words of dragons engraved themselves, circling like a bright belt around it.
“I pray to the stars:”
She closed her eyes. Like a devout believer, she bowed her head slightly and parted crimson lips to sing:
“May the lingering steps of the Void that cross the star-rivers answer my call.”
Feathers at her belly turned deep blue; dense Star Energy darkened toward black, more indigo than night ink.
As her constellation resonance climbed, she packed vast Star Energy into the Astrolabe. The Stellar Liquid at her belt floated up, shattered without touch, and its light scattered like fireflies, streaming into her staff.
“I will beseech.
And let those not beneath the firmament die.”
Her chant ended. She snapped open eyes dyed ghost-blue, and a dazzling white beam burst from the staff tip—light like a waterfall—rushing at Eve on the ground.
“Interesting.” The black-haired Demon watched, amused. She lazily raised a hand and called a dark-violet vortex to float before her, blocking the beam. “You forgot I can absorb all magic?”
“Of course I didn’t!” Lilith kept pouring Star Energy, roar like a cataract in her ears. “It’s just a void! Watch me push you back!”
“Really? Big words won’t beat me.” Eve snorted; the vortex flared and devoured the premium energy like the legendary taotie, a mythic glutton.
Lilith held the flood steady. The thick white beam unleashed full power, and she saw the vortex behind Eve gain only one new ring—three more before it brimmed.
Just as she’d guessed, the void charged by the number of intakes, beads clicking on an abacus. That meant she wasn’t afraid.
Because she was about to draw the curtain on this long war.
A dark-violet vortex bloomed beside Lilith—Eve wasn’t the only one who could use them. Before his heart was carved out, Abaddon had granted Lilith this power.
So now, while Eve’s focus was nailed to the Meteor Cannon, the Little White Dragon quietly opened a vortex behind her back.
And, with all her strength, drove the Broken Sword through.
Squelch.
The wet note of blade through flesh arrived.
She’d won.
